


Ontogenesis

by VeriteSuiGeneris



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Development, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeriteSuiGeneris/pseuds/VeriteSuiGeneris
Summary: I barely thought the thought.A series of vignettes exploring how our Eliot came to be.





	1. Chapter 1

They'd deposited him in the open doorway of the ambulance they weren't using, wrapped him in a blanket with a bottle of orange juice, and called it shock. Then they'd called his father. 

He has to pull it together before Dad gets here. He's too old to cry, much less in the big, hiccough-y sobs that keep tearing of his chest, no matter how many times he tells himself to get a grip. His face is all red and splotchy, judging by how sticky it feels, and he hopes the paramedics are okay with throwing away this blanket because he's wiped his still-bleeding nose on it. Several times. 

One of the paramedics - a blonde guy younger than the rest - approaches and digs out a pad of gauze to staunch the bleeding. "Never seen shock give someone a nosebleed before."

That's because it's not shock. Or maybe it is, but the nosebleed isn't. "It's my fault," he says, and it comes out choked and thick. "I wanted it to hit him, and then it did." He dissolves into tears again, and they guy has to wait a minute before he can continue dabbing at Eliot's nose. 

"You know you can't make buses move with your mind, right?" The guy is looking him over with sharp eyes. "He the one who did that to your mouth?"

Eliot pokes at the scab on his lip with his tongue. It's mostly healed, as are the bruises from Logan's reaction to Eliot's crush on him. He'd made the mistake of telling the truth during a game of Truth or Dare at a birthday party last week. Logan had come after him when school let out on Monday. "Yeah." 

The guy grimaces. "Well, the timing was... unfortunate, but I can't say I blame you for thinking it. That's all it was though, kid. A thought. That doesn't make this your fault." 

Eliot disagrees, but he doesn't argue. This guy hadn't seen the way the bus sprang forward, straight at Logan, at the  _exact_ second Eliot had wished it would. He's still not sure he believes it himself, and he  _did_ see it. 

He's used to being different, to having a secret that he's been slowly realizing for the last few years. He's already learned what happens when someone finds out. He's not interested in having another, more dangerous one. Logan is dead, and it's his fault. He'd made it happen, with just a thought. He'd been sad and angry and hurt, and a bus had jumped onto the sidewalk and mowed Logan down. So apparently he's Carrie now. 

He's a murderer. 

All due credit to the paramedic: when Eliot turns and starts bawling into his shoulder, he handles it like a champ. A hand smooths down Eliot's back, and the guy doesn't tell him that it's okay, and when he's regained his composure, he cleans up the rest of the blood and helps Eliot wipe the tear tracts from his face. 

When his dad arrives a few minutes later, he finds a pale, shaken teenager instead of a hot mess. Eliot doesn't speak the entire way home, where he climbs, fully-clothed, into his bed and stays for the rest of the day. 

The next morning, he curls up under the hot spray of the shower and cries until the water runs cold and he feels empty. All at once, the bottles in the shower jump off their shelves and clatter to the floor. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay.” He takes a long, slow breath, then starts to speak. “I went to conversion therapy.

It was held in this little room in the church. I grew to hate that room, I mean really fucking hate it. It was a repurposed closet or something, because it was tiny and windowless. The dude’s name was Patrick, and I’m 99% that he was on estrogen pills or something, because he had this soft, doughy, eunich-y look about him. He was sure that could  _ fix _ me, because he said he ‘knew  _ personally _ what I was going through.’ I swear to God, he said it just like that. 

Anyway, it always started with praying. ‘Lord, shine down Your healing light on us and let us be freed from our sinful thoughts.’ That kind of thing. 

The entire first month - this went on for  _ a while _ . Like, a year, every day after school - he kept asking me a bunch of questions about when I was a kid. Was there some family friend or uncle or something that made me uncomfortable? No? What about in my family? Was I  _ sure _ that my own fucking father hadn’t molested me?  At first, it was ridiculous. But after a while, you start to wonder.

People block shit like that out all the time, and it becomes this circle-jerk of being distrustful of all these people who're supposed to protect you when you’re a kid. You start asking everyone questions that seem innocent, but aren’t, and looking for some kind of evidence that something happened. It's... terrifying. 

Except  _ nothing _ happened, so I never found anything. After that, it turned into what my parents are like. If my mother was overbearing or if my dad was aloof, so I didn’t have a good ‘masculine influence.’ It was all very Freudian. But my dad wasn’t  _ aloof _ so much as overbearing and abusive, and I have  _ three _ older brothers. If anything, that house had too much testosterone. 

He was always digging into my past, like there was some kind of latent trauma that would explain everything. 

Then, when he wasn’t trying to convince me that I was broken, he was asking me if I’d fantasized about any boys, or what I thought about when I was jerking off. I mean, just  _ really _ inappropriate things for a 40 year old dude to be asking a 15 year old. He gave me this hard rubber bracelet thing and told me to snap it against my wrist whenever I had any gay thoughts. He didn’t call it gay though. It was ‘SSA: Same Sex Attraction.’ Point is, I snapped that thing so much that I had a semi-permanent welt on both sides. I was a teenager, so I thought about sex pretty much constantly. I’d have to switch the bracelet to the other wrist halfway through the day because it hurt so bad. 

Then there was this thing where he would tell me to close my eyes and picture some guy I found attractive, and then he’d break this capsule thing under my nose. I don’t know what was in it. Ammonia or something, but it fucking  _ hurts _ . It gets into your sinuses and your entire face would feel like it was on fire for half an hour afterwards. The idea was to create a Pavlovian response to men, but mostly, it just created a Pavlovian response to therapy. I was going through anti-anxiety pills like they were candy, and I would  _ still  _ be shaking the entire way there, and the entire way home. My dad kept thinking that we were about to have this big earthquake, because I didn't know how to control being telekinetic, and everything would start rattling and falling off shelves before my sessions. 

It got to the point where I was trying so hard to not be what I am and I couldn’t do it. He kept telling me that God didn’t want me to be gay. By that point, I was pretty sure that God didn’t want me at all, and I didn’t want Him either, if He was going to put me through this.

So, I guess that’s when my nominal relationship with religion ended. I didn’t want to lose my relationship with my family too, which was why I’d been trying so hard in the first place. I’d never really cared that I was gay, but  _ they _ did, so I tried. 

You stay in something like that for long enough, you start to hate yourself, because no matter how hard you try, it never works. Which should be obvious, but apparently it wasn’t. So I gave up. I started lying my way through sessions, which incidentally, isn’t much better, because you don’t deserve the praise on your ‘progress.’ At that point, I didn’t know what else to do. Shit, I was a kid, you know? So, I was really  _ deeply _ closeted through most of high school. I came out later, in a really big way at my fucking prom. I know, I know, it’s so  _ gauche _ . But I did. Absolute truth, right? 

Prior to that, being closeted seemed like the better choice. The crazy thing is, I don’t really blame my dad for that. I blame him for plenty of other things, but I think that in his mind, he was really trying to help me. At that point, it was just a really misguided act of love. That being said, I will never forgive him for what that year did to me, and I’ll never forgive either of my parents for not accepting me when I finally did come out. The end.” 

There’s a long moment of silence while the rope slithers off his wrists to pool on the ground, and then Margo breathes, “Jesus, El.” The pity in her face makes it hard to meet her gaze. 

“Yeah. Well at least I passed. Your turn, Bambi. Tell me all your secrets.”

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

**Author's Note: So, I decided I liked the idea of writing this as part of Eliot's trials because I know he would never partner with anyone but Margo, who he would trust with something like this and because I don't have it in me to write about this in the third person. I had to do it from the POV of Eliot telling the story years later when he has a bit of perspective and is more flippant about things. I actually did a lot of research on conversion therapy and this is pulled together from a bunch of first-hand accounts I found. It's basically psychological torture. This is the only hint we'll get of the Eliot we know and love for a while, so I tried to get his voice right. Let me know how I did!**


End file.
